"POPSHOP, was a Belgium TV show that provided pop for the wacky European teenagers of the day.Six tracks lifted from video tape of the set, the rarity value being placed on Coming Home a Delaney & Bonny track that was at the time a constant in their live set.Holder introduces the track as being from the soon to be released seminal LP SLADE ALIVE, it never of course appeared on the LP, so it's very handy that we have this live version of it here."Dave Graham: Slade In England

This Belgium broadcast was recorded in December at the Pop Deux Studios in Brussells and probably broadcast around Xmas 1971. Holder refers to Slade Alive coming out soon and the important track here, Coming Home, written by Delaney & Bonnie Bramlett is supposed to feature on the album. Oddly enough, the entire setlist was intended to feature on Slade Alive (as a double album) but Holder only remarks on Coming Home, a track that didn't make the release. A shame it didn't happen but at least we can hear it here .

On Oct. 19th, 20th & 21st, there will be a free showing of Slade while they record.....

General News

.... Unfortunately, the new album still hasn't been finalised....."

OK, so they're arranging for the Slade Alive recording session but their new album is having problems getting released. Play It Loud was released 28/11/1970 so that was well old and Slade Alive would not get released until 24/03/1972 and it wasn't even recorded yet. The fan club letters were sent, I believe, earlier than the months they represented otherwise the crowd at the Command Theatre would have really sucked?

This means that in the summer of 1971, Slade had a whole album ready to go. What does 'not finalised' in a fan newsletter mean. I would read that as

"we have a new studio album recorded but Chas ain't confident about releasing it yet."

Note that September was skipped in the newsletters with some pants excuse, I think Chas pulled it at the last minute.

Chances are it could have had:

Coz I Love YouCandidateWonderin' YMy Life Is NaturalGet Down & Get With It

Hear Me CallingLook Wot You DunIn Like A Shot From My GunComin' HomeKeep On Rockin'

That would have been one tough album but my guess is it would have sunk like Play It Loud before Slade Alive and it was certainly not right after Coz I Love You's chart success. Of course, I'm only thinking of the obscure early tracks that I like but I guess it could have had a whole collection of 'never heard of' tracks. Unfortunately, it's far more likely to be Coz I Luv You, which for some reason never got a British release but was released in Holland?

The Slade Papersare a very interesting source of Slade research. It's a collection of the group's fanclub newsletters from May 1971 to April 1976 but you have to bear in mind that it's full of 'what they want the fans to think' and also, the fans are young. The whole point of the fanclub newsletters was to focus their fans thinking and mold them into what the management wanted 'Slade Fans' to be. Unfortunately, the letters start from July/August 1971 but I think it's very telling that September 1971 is missing.

The general party line back in 1971 was one of "Chas is encouraging Nod & Jim to write their own material. We have no idea what songs will go on the new album coz the lads are still trying to write them." but to my mind the Fan Club Newsletter is not the place to 'brainstorm' and show your general disarray?

July/August 1971 is full of Get Down And Get With It and how well it seems to be doing (it hasn't hit the Top 20 yet mind?) and the band are so busy they don't have time for a holiday. A competition announces the winner will receive a new Slade album. You have until 15th August 1971... To win a new copy of Play It Loud that was almost a year old. Surely that would read 'will receive a copy of Slade's album' as they did not have another? But then the only people that bought Play It Loud before 1972 were probably the members of this fan club?

Throughout July, Get Down And Get With It slowly crept into the Top 40 (an awesome event in the early life of a breaking band) and in August it had climbed through the Twenties and into the Teens. Surprisingly, the beginning of September is when it started to fall from it's Top 20 peak of number 16.

Bearing in mind that the newsletter went out earlier than the months it addressed, I would guess that July/August probably got written up in early June. Get Down And Get With It was released 21/05/1971 and then re-released 08/06/1971 as Get Down With It. I would have expected the Sept/Oct newsletter to be a fervid bundle of excitement, busting at the seams with hyperbole.

Instead, it gets cancelled. The next issue is dated Oct/Nov 1971 with a lame excuse of...

"the stickers were not ready and we thought it would be nicer to have a Xmas letter."

Now, fair enough, the stickers were an important part of the awareness campaign but the more important reasons are hinted at in the paragraph written by Chas.

"...the delay in releasing the new single which was due to the success of Get Down And Get With It. They were so busy they were unable to go to the studio to finish it off."

Another line states

"...we did not know the exact date of the boys studio times..."

The December issue is ambiguous in its address of the Slade Alive album. In the part supposedly written by 'The Boys', it says

"...look out for our LP 'Slade Alive'."

and yet in the 'other news' under the heading ALBUM we are told

"The boys new album has still not been released, or even given a release date..."

Almost as if we have been waiting forever. Slade Alive would not get a release until 24/03/1972.

I would expect the hyperbole key word to be used at every opportunity in THAT newsletter?

For at least two years there has been an air of despair in the music business. Everyone agrees the scene becoming stagnant and everyone has been waiting for something new to break. Meanwhile. a new buyer is growing up and growing tired of the choice between their older brothers' and sisters' music played by men about thirty years old and the synthetic stuff turned out by session via Top of the Pops.

Sooner or later this generation is going to throw up a new generation of groups, and maybe it's just beginning. Grand Funk Railroad, universally put down by the generation that grew up with the Stones as an abominable noise, are really big with the fourteen year-olds in the States. These kids want to move and groove to their music, not sit down and appreciate it.

In Britain too, the same situation is arising and a new wave of groups are sure to appear from nowhere. Slade hope that they will be riding on the crest of this wave. They are all about twenty years old. About two years ago they were projected as a skinhead group in a world of longhaired bands but nothing much happened.

But now with Get Down and Get With It in the charts here they see themselves as the first of these new groups. It's a Chuck Berry/Little Richard sort of song with a 'stomp your feet' bit in the middle. With the full weight of twenty-four years behind me I can cynically say ''I've heard it all before." And so I have, but the fifteen year-olds haven't.

Slade are Dave Hill on lead guitar, Jimmy Lea who takes most of the lead vocals and plays bass and electric violin, Noddy Holder on guitar and vocals and drummer Don Powell. Says Noddy, "We're not just a rock band but Get Down and Get With It is typical of the sort of excitement we get going.

We get real audience involvement and that's what the record's based on. We don't just get one group of people at our gigs either. We get skins and hairies and they all rave together without any hustles. All the kids want to do is jump around and dance."

Slade criticise the established scene. Says Noddy, "They're getting very involved with their music, which is OK, but they are forgetting about the audience."

Jimmy: "We got into music during the Beatles era. We heard our elder brothers' records, but we haven't heard the old rockers. I'd never heard of Carl Perkins until the other week when Chas played me one of his records."

Chas is Chas Chandler, their manager. He told me how he'd played a track off a Fats Domino album at his flat the other night and Jimmy had asked who the record was by. Chas told him and he asked: "Who is Fats Domino? When on earth was that stuff made]" Chas looked at the label and told him: 1955. "I was three then!" exclaimed Jimmy.

Jimmy continued:

"Everything is coming to a dead end. There are no new people breaking. The Stones and the Beatles are old men now."

Added Dave, "The kids don't want to know about that stuff. I appreciate what the Stones and the Beatles have done in the past but they ought to step down and give someone else a chance."

Slade say they had a hard time getting gigs at first. Promoters had never seen a skinhead band before and they didn't want to know. They also met a lot of prejudice from colleges and universities and when they were booked they didn't always get good receptions. Now, however, they find that college students aren't as hostile and they have built up a large following in the colleges as well as the clubs. They have been getting radio plays and have received help from John Peel. Mike Harding and Alan Freeman, amongst others.

So Slade have just about arrived and whether they go on to become an established group or not only time will tell but they do seem to be the spearhead of the new attack on the stagnant established scene. And good luck to them.

Beat Instrumental was a monthly UK music mag for a music industry audience which first published in May 1963. It was a contender with the music magazines of the day with chart positions and articles about sales in addition to the usual record reviews and industry gossip. Published by Beat Publications LTD. started by Sean O'Mahoney the magazine billed itself as "The World's First Group & Instrumental Magazine" and it differed from the run of the mill in that the interviews conducted with musicians often talked about the gear they used and the business environment with equipment reviews, unheard of outside of trade magazines.

In the late 60's the mag became more and more rock orientated with less pop content and in the mid 70's it was so deeply involved with progressive rock that it almost bordered on obsession, this makes the magazine collectable amongst prog-rock fans but must have made it less interesting in its day to those involved with pop music. The magazine disappears somewhere around 1980, Beat Publications surviving into 2003.

"Slade fans in Scotland caused a near riot when 500 of them were locked outside a Slade gig in St Andrews recently. The 500 crossed the Tay Bridge only to find a ‘members only' notice outside the club. Police arrested 30 protesting fans."

SLADEMANIA?? Certainly looks like it! The Slade's Noddy phoned Club 208 from Scotland to tell us more about it. ...

SUE: Are the fans really reacting in this fantastic way?

NODDY: Yeah, it's quite frightening at times. I mean they do get slightly out-of-hand now and again! But basically since the success of ‘Get Down And Get With It' the Scottish fans have been marvellous! Sorry about those guys and gals who couldn't get in at St. Andrews, but it was nothing to do with us.

SUE: What about the next single? Will it be comparable to Get Down And Get With It?

NODDY: It will be slightly more melodious than the last but it will have the same audience participation' feel about it. Y'know building up to a right rave-up at the end of the record.

SUE: I've noticed that on stage you do tend to drop in the occasional deep' song, such as Nights In White Satin.'

NODDY: True We'll be using the electric violin and things on this next single at least on the song. We hope will be our next single!

SUE: Will it be a self-penned song this time?

NODDY: We do about six of our own compositions on stage and wrote the B' sides of our last two singles. This time we're writing the A' side too.

SUE: What kind of audience are you reaching to?

NODDY: Well, we grew our hair long in order to reach as many people as possible. We are aimed at the masses. Every pop group should be. Our main aim, on and off stage, is to have a good time and see that everybody else enjoys themselves too!

"A YEAR ago a lot of people back home walked on the other side of the street if they saw us coming so they didn't have to talk to us," says Dave Hill, never-ever serious lead guitarist of Slade. "But now with 'Get Down And Get With It' in the chart, they come up to Us in the street, shake our hands and say things like 'How you doing mate? Nice to see ya.'."

But that doesn't surprise Slade for they’ve never had it easy, They were launched three years ago on what seemed the perfect gimmick; they were announced as "the first skinhead group" at a time when boots and braces and shaven heads were the "in" thing.

Yet, somehow, they didn’t take off, as they should have.

They were banned from halls by promoters afraid of riots, spurned by members of other groups and suffered more knocks than almost any other group you could think of.

"People thought we were just a put-together group," says lead singer Noddy Holder, "and we became known as just a skinhead group. No one wanted to listen to our music. At first the knocks didn't bother us but when they went on and on, and the people knocking us were the ones who hadn't bothered to listen to us, it got a bit much."

So how then did they finally manage to convince enough people of their talent to get their -third single high in the chart? The answer is hard work and plenty of it. They've been working six, sometimes seven nights a week, gradually building a following by getting audiences raving wherever they've played.

Party nights

“Most nights it's like a party," says Noddy. "Instead of trying to educate the audience like a lot of groups nowadays, we try and get them to feel part of what's going on. The visual aspect of the act is very important to us. - In fact 50 per cent of the act is visual. the other 50 per cent concentrates on the music."

Their act has always been popular because of the atmosphere they create live. So they figured if they could get that same feel on record they'd have a winner. So that's what they did with "Get Down And Get With It”

"We tried very much to get the excitement of the stage act on the record and I think we succeeded. That's why it was a hit. We could do it on stage and the kids could go away and buy it and get the same thing. That’s what we want to try and do on the next album: not necessarily do rock and roll songs but get the same feel as the single."

The next single, they say very definitely, won't be another rock number.

"We don't want people to think of us as a rock and roll band. We write a lot of songs, ballads as well as ravers, and want to do mostly our material."

But the single won't be a ballad either, "because we couldn't do much with that on stage. We feel we always have to be doing something on stage."

"Slow numbers, we feel, are real downers.” says Noddy. "We like to keep moving but we do a couple of slow things like "Nights In White Satin" because we dare not leave them out now our audiences have got to know them. But If we do a slow number we have to fool around while we're doing it. We’ll belch or something. We don't want to be pretentious and the slow things aren't us. We'd hate people to think we're preaching to them. We just want them to have a good time."

They emphasise though, that rockers they may be, but they also believe in melody.

"At the moment," adds Noddy, "we’re not as heavy as we want to be on record but we’ve got to think of the radio. We wouldn't get our records played if they were any heavier."

A live album by them is an obvious possibility.

"But," says bass guitarist Jimmy Lee (who complains they never show him on Top Of The Pops), "it would probably be a complete shambles. Completely chaotic. The kids get so involved and leap about so much that leads would get broken and the sound wouldn't be all that good. But it might be an idea for us to do an album half live and half studio recorded."

Slade's main concern now when they get on stage is to create an atmosphere, to create excitement.

Says Dave: "It all started one night we all got drunk and went on stage and had a good laugh. The kids all dug it and we enjoyed it. And that’s the way it's been since. Not that we need to drink before we go on stage! But now we're a lot more confident.

"We've got to the stage where we feel if you don't like us you don't like us and it doesn't bother us.”

Slade no longer dress like skinheads but their dress still attracts a lot of attention. They've gone from one extreme to the other. Now it's all bright colours, boots, dungarees and other such eyebrow-raising costumes. But that's all part of "showbiz."

Cheap group

"That's what's lost out of this business," says Jimmy Lee, who incidentally has taken up playing the fiddle in the hope that it will bring him in a few more camera shots. "All the flash has gone out of groups. You've got to give the audience something to think about, something to look at. You've got to give them value for money."

"That's what the skinhead look was all about," says Noddy. "We were hoping to get the same effect, but we found a lot of people didn't dig that. As we look now we're gelling over to more people. Before the people either liked it or they didn't. But we're not knocking it. It was something we did and tried and it was a laugh at the time.”

"But now that we've broken through," says Noddy, "we're not going to out price ourselves like so many groups do when they have a hit. Those that have been nice to us we'll play for at the usual price. But those that knocked us . . . we're going to do them for every penny!"

Phil Symes,

A big thank you, as always, to Chris Selby for supplying this superb article.

"A two-day festival is to be staged at Bearsden in Scotland, adjacent to the Kilmardinny Riding School, on September 4 and 5. Cat Stevens, Lindisfarne, Curved Air, Brinsley Schwartz, Bronco and the JSD Band are among acts appearing on the Saturday. Set for the Sunday are Roy Wood with the Electric Light Orchestra, Slade, Uriah Heep, Skid Row, Merlin and Beggars Opera."

Slade were to play on the Sunday while Lindisfarne played Saturday. In little more than a year they would share a tour of Australia. Coz I Love You would be written and recorded within a month but at this moment they were still plugging Get Down & Get With It. I'd love to know what was in the set at this time.

Interesting to see Roy Wood with The Electric Light Orchestra. I assume they were one act at this point and this was during the period where he found he couldn't share the limelight with Jeff Lynne?

Meanwhile,

"... Slade fans riot at club

The presence of Slade caused a near riot in Scotland last week, when over 30 fans were arrested outside the Cosmos Youth Centre in St. Andrews. Over 500 fans had crossed the Tay Bridge from Dundee to attend Slade's performance, only to find the doors of the centre closed and a "members only" notice posted.

Police herded most of the youngsters back over the bridge, but some were charged with obstruction in the process. Meanwhile, Slade played to 1.000 inside the club."

There were 156 gigs in 1972 between Jan 2nd and Oct 28th. Once again supporting various names such as Alex Harvey (Pre Sensational), Nazareth, Slade (the Scottish leg of their nationwide tour - Status Quo did the English dates), Walrus, Country Joe Macdonald, Wishbone Ash, Edgar Broughton Band, Man, and Tear Gas again. The Sleaz Band were also at Lincoln for the Great Western Festival playing the 'Giants Of Tomorrow' stage.

Phil Robertson left this version of the band in late August during a bust up in Wrexham of all places and they did the outstanding gigs with a roadie on bass until breaking up in October. Robertson still resides in Dundee and still does the odd gig.

This info was plundered from the superb Rocking Scots site where you can find more on the Sleaz Band and many other less obvious Scottish rock bands. www.rockingscots.co.uk

Slade spent a lot of time in Scotland in general, collecting a loyal following over the years. They visited the Isle of Arran during their 1971 tour. Situated in south-western Scotland, in the Firth of Clyde near Glasgow. It's the seventh largest island in Scotland but, being the southernmost of the Scottish islands, isn't part of the Hebrides. Located close to Glasgow and Scotland's Ayrshire coast, Arran is a popular and an easily accessible tourist destination.

Arran had no local paper until 1974, entertainment details were passed out on flyers. Slade played Whiting Bay on the Isle of Arran, on Thursday 29th July 1971 with a Scottish band called Sleaz Band, from Dundee, as support. The lucky audience got entertained from 9:30 - 1 for a 45p entrance fee.

They also returned to play again in September that same year. This time they were accompanied by Nazareth and a new Irish band called "Thin Lizzie".

"The three bands did not actually line up together but played one or two nights approx each weekend through that summer along with alex harvey band and dundee rockers The Sleaz Band, I saw Slade on three consecutive nites with Sleaz band the support act at Whiting bay Lamlash and Brodick hall friday saturday and sunday. That was entertainment at its best,"

musicman 2008-10-14

Not wishing to embarrass you there Musicman but you're wrong. "Mini Festival at Lamlash: Slade, Nazareth & Thin Lizzy compered by the incomparable Tom Ferrie". Although it isn't dated, I suspect it was a Bank Holiday weekend, probably 26th September 1971. Tom Ferrie remembers little but the hangover from the after party.

Stumble, who were popular chart band at the time, are supported by a disco on the Saturday, Sleaz are still on the bill supporting Thin Lizzie (sic) and compere Tom Ferrie rides again. The Corries were a Scottish folk group that emerged from the Scottish folk revival of the early 1960s. They were promoting their 1970 album 'Strings and Things' and approaching the peak of their success. Arran must have had a great weekend?

I'm indebted, as always, to Chris Selby for turning up this incredible memorabilia. Our man in the Black Country has contacts in remote Scotland. There is apparently no limit to his resources.

"This is a pretty much 'must have' bootleg for any real fan of the band. 1971, and SLADE were trotting around Europe promoting themselves, the Skinhead hairstyle had been replaced by smoother locks and the wardrobe had started to evolve from the boots and braces to the primary colours. At this point in their careers have only had the one hit, the breakthrough 'Get Down With It'

July 1st 1971 saw SLADE play a set at a university campus, broadcast by VPRO (The Vrijzinnig Protestantse Radio Omroep or Liberal Protestant Radio Broadcast). The standout track from the short set is without doubt Sweet Box, as this is the only known live recording of the track, the version here lasts over six minutes."
(Dave Graham, Slade In England)

Well, it's not often that SIE is wrong but, in this case, there was no university campus. The performance was at Dijkgatbos in Wieringerwerf in the Wieringermeer area. It's a rural area on the edge of a forest.

"It was recorded at VPRO's "Piknik" on the 1st of July in 1971 at the Dijkgatbos (Wieringermeer, The Netherlands). As a child, I was there and it was my first acquaintance with Slade long before they got famous.

There were other groups, too, like the Dutch group Brainbox, and Slade was rehearsing on some sort of round platform with a yellow floor, 30 cm high (1ft). The floor was flat and the stage had a roof that was placed on six beautifully painted sticks that were placed in equal distances from each other around the stage. It looked somewhat like a small merry-go-round without any the animals. This is purely from memory, maybe I'm wrong on some details.

The rehearsals were in the afternoon. The actual live TV show was in the evening. It was my mother's birthday and hadn't it been for a fire alarm, my father also would have attended the evening show. The show was broadcast on TV and it is said that I have been on TV for a few moments."Adri Verhoef: July 2011

The VPRO was established in the Netherlands in 1926 as a religious broadcasting organization. It represented the Liberal Protestant listener but during the 50's and 60's it became more "liberal" than protestant, and although the acronym was kept, its meaning was dropped.

VPRO broadcast the first nude woman on Dutch television in 1967. It is still considered the most 'culturally radical' group on Dutch television.

VPRO often collaborates with other broadcasting organisations such as the WDR, the BBC, and Arte. Like all Dutch public broadcasters the VPRO does not have its own channel.

Nieuwsblad van het Noorden: 20th June 1971

"Like last year (PIK-NIK) sends the VPRO this summer a number of programs from an outside location somewhere in the Netherlands. VPRO Campus tomorrow night live from North Holland. Besides some pop groups, lots of entertainment, Betty Boop and a new film series, also the northern Dutch the word about the function of the water for their region. The English rock band Slade is one of the groups that occur. The four gentlemen of Slade playing together for five years, but especially recently started only good name for themselves in England."

In the photo: the English band Slade.

In 1991, rock band Nirvana played a famous VPRO session that has been released on various bootlegs. As we can see here, they were preceded by Slade many years before. If only somebody had the original footage for a Slade DVD release. Well, at least we have the audio.

Welcome

There is nothing new on this blog, everything here has been previously available elsewhere, in one format or another. My aim here is to try to ensure that the information is available to all Slade fans everywhere.

My thanks to Chris Selby (without whom I would know nothing)and anybody else that has supplied anything personal to this or any other media collection. I must apologise to Chris Charlesworth for taking liberty's with his book. Anybody who is interested in the group's history should invest in a copy of 'Feel The Noize', generally considered to be The Slade Bible by most fans. And last but by no means least,Keith Farley ('N Between Times) and John R. Woodhouse (Brum Beat) who have provided much background information by way of their on-line research, These should be studied by anybody with any interest in the 60's Midland Beat era. More general 60's info can be found at Marmalade Skies, a source of invaluable pop essentials.

Any offer of missing artwork would be gratefully received. My main concern is to get 'readable text' for the trainspotters.

Contributors

Official Media

All of Slade's official releases have been remastered and released on CD with good quality packaging and comprehensive sleeve notes by Salvo for Union Square. I would recommend the purchase of this collection to anybody who is interested in the group. This blog will not be making any official music available for download.

Images are for review or research purposes only. All images, audio, video, text, etc. is copyright. Apart from fair dealing for the purposes of private study, research, criticism or review as permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part may be reproduced, copied, transmitted in any form without the prior written permission of the copyright holder.

The Historian

I would like to take this opportunity to thank Chris Selby for his input. This site owes much, if not all, to his relentless research and charitable nature. Keep up the good work mate.

Slade Fans

Help Slade...

Email

Subject: From Roots To Boots

mcp59 at live dot co dot uk

Copyright

No part of this work should be reproduced or used without the express permission of the author or his associates. Failure to comply may result in legal action. This blog copyright of Michael Parker and associated sources.